Project management goal: Set up a project

Once you've finished your initial planning — or if you haven't even started! — use Microsoft Project 2010 to create and set up your project plan. You can then use Project's powerful features to more effectively manage your project.

This overview shows you the big picture of setting up a project. Follow the links in each step for detailed information about each process.

What do you want to do?

Step 1: Create a project

The usual way to start to use Project 2010 is to create a new blank project plan. Or you can base your new file on an existing project or template that contains tasks or resources that are like those you need.

Step 2: Add and link tasks

Most projects begin with a task list that will grow in complexity until it becomes a full-blown project plan and schedule. Once you create or import your task list, you can then define the relationships between them.

Step 3: Outline your project

You make your task list more organized and readable by just indenting and outdenting the project's tasks to create an outline of the summary tasks and subtasks. Unlike earlier versions, Project 2010 lets you start with a list of summary tasks and create subtasks for them, instead of the other way around.

If you want to show work breakdown structure (WBS) codes, you can use the existing structure in your project or create a custom WBS code mask to specify the structure of WBS codes when you create tasks.

Step 4: Create calendars

Once you have a better idea of what must be done and how all the parts relate to each other in your project, you can begin to adjust the schedule. In Project, the default working times are 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. weekdays, with an hour off for lunch. You can set calendars for your whole project, specific tasks, and resources doing work on the project.

Step 5: Save and publish

From time to time, you need to save your project to keep changes that you made, make a backup copy, create a template that you can use for another project, or even publish your project to Project Server.